


‘cause the years are falling by like rain

by wearealltalesintheend



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Feels, POV Charlie, Season Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 00:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearealltalesintheend/pseuds/wearealltalesintheend
Summary: Here’s the thing: Charlie can’t believe their last-minute half-assed plan worked.Sara had forbidden it from being put in motion, of course, but neither Charlie nor Constantine have ever been very good at listening to orders, especially when they’re rubbish like Sara’s.What’s one life to thousands? Especially one tainted like Charlie’s. It’s no question at all, really.She had never expected Constantine’s light trick to work in a demon as powerful and as used to him as Neron, but it did, it did, because Neron had been half-blinded by grief and hatred, and Charlie’s nothing if not a bloody good actress.*or, Neron's deal is over Charlie, not Nate.based on the prompt:Zarlie, the finale but where Charlie dies at the end instead of Nate.





	‘cause the years are falling by like rain

**Author's Note:**

> because, well, I can't stop wishing they made Zarlie canon, and I just love Charlie so much

Here’s the thing: Charlie can’t believe their last-minute half-assed plan worked. 

Sara had forbidden it from being put in motion, of course, but neither Charlie nor Constantine have ever been very good at listening to orders, especially when they’re rubbish like Sara’s.

What’s one life to  _thousands?_ Especially one tainted like Charlie’s. It’s no question at all, really.

She had never expected Constantine’s light trick to work in a demon as powerful and as used to him as Neron, but it did, _it did,_  because Neron had been half-blinded by grief and hatred, and Charlie’s nothing if not a bloody good actress.

Neron squeezes her throat and it’s Constantine’s face that blotches and goes slack, and it takes Charlie everything to hold this form, this skin, and she’s half-convinced the effort had a hand in killing her.

All she has time to think is  _oh bollocks, should’ve kissed her goodbye again,_ before it all goes dark–

–and she opens her eyes to see her body– well,  _Amaya’s_  body but it’s the one Charlie has felt more comfortable in since she’s been in her  _original_ form, but then again, it’s been so long she’s forgotten what her own face had looked like in those early days– lying on the floor, pale and lifeless.

Constantine is laughing that bitter, broken laughter of his, and Neron is shriveling in the air, smoke shrinking into itself and its wail echoes in the stand.

Then, Ray is sitting up with a shudder, Nora cradling his body in that awful blue dress of hers, and he’s looking at Charlie’s dead body now too, all wide-eyed and half-formed words. It makes her chest hurt but in an almost good way because this is proof she made the right choice for once in her wretched life.

Sara, she notices, is clutching her girlfriend’s hand like a lifeline and cussing up a storm, while the time lady buries her face on Sara’s hair. Beside them, Gary is crying into Mona’s shoulder, and hey, look at that, at least the little bugger is distracting her off wailing along.

But then, she makes the mistake of looking at Mick, and  _bloody hell,_ if the bastard makes her cry now that she’s dead, she’ll stay around just to haunt him. Mick is grunting  _no_ in that way that only people that lost  _too much_  before do, and his fingers are twitching in the trigger like it’s taking everything for him not to set the whole place on fire.  _It’s okay, big guy,_  she wants to say,  _you keep writing your fancy books,_ but the words all float away from her.

How’s she even a ghost anyway? ‘Shifters not being supposed to have souls and all. The last time, she was dragged to hell, body and everything, none of this afterlife business.

“ _Charlie_?” It’s Zari, skidding to a stop in front of her body and she’s crying, tears mixing with the dust still settling around them, and Zari is pulling Charlie’s body into her lap and curling around her. “Charlie, come on, _please-_ \- wake up, you  _idiot_ , why would you do this?”

_Because you thought me how to be brave,_ Charlie thinks, swallowing back the words and tucking them back safely between her ribs, even though no one could hear them anyway. Somehow, death doesn’t stop her heart from breaking at the sight.

Zari is shaking her now, skipping steps in her grief straight into anger.  _“You idiot,”_ she sobs, and her fists close over Charlie’s shirt, uselessly clawing at an empty shell.

“That’s quite an impression you must have made down there,” a voice pipes in from beside her in the rafters, vaguely familiar, and it takes Charlie a moment to recognize Nate’s father. “They’re going to miss you, kid.”

“Yeah,” Charlie glances down again, itching to reach for Zari, draw her close and never let go again. “They are, aren’t they? I didn’t mean to leave them like this. Thought they give it a cry for a bit, you know, and then go on their jolly way. Not–  _this_.”

“You’re surprised they loved you this much,” Nate’s dad says sagely, nodding along and looking down thoughtfully. “There’s a lot of power in that,  _love_.”

She’s about to snap that she doesn’t need some bloody Disney song but when she turns back to him, the old man is gone and she’s alone once more.

And then, in the next blink, he’s there again, grinning like a bloody fool. “Tell Nate I love him, alright?” He makes her promise, and shoves her down the ledge, sending her toppling down.

While Charlie knows, rationally, that she’s dead and therefore nothing can actually hurt her, her first instinct when falling down some great height is to scream bloody murder all the way down, down,  _down_ –

The first thing she’s aware of is the final notes of some awful country song playing out but it shimmers with magic, and Charlie jolts up, suddenly conscious of the fact she’s back in her body.  _“Fucking hell,_ ” she gasps, drawing in a deep, shivering breath, chest heaving.

_“Charlie,”_  Zari breathes, and it’s halfway into a question, but Charlie doesn’t care, lets her wrap her arms around her and cling to each other like dear life.

She even lets Zari draw away and punch her shoulder repeatedly for a full moment, yelling what an idiot she had been for pulling a stunt like that. Charlie laughs breathlessly, marveling over the feeling of warm skin and light pain again, and catches Zari’s fists easily, smirking her trademark smirk before catching her into a kiss.

It’s only when they break apart that something else catches her attention.

“What the fuck, Z,” she cries, scrambling up and taking Zari with her, grips her shoulders desperately, as if she held strong enough, Zari wouldn’t disappear. “You can’t be here–  _the timeline-_ \- we need to get you back to the ship– and you call  _me_ an idiot, you bloody fool!”

Zari smiles, sad and resigned, and her eyes crinkle at the corners. “We’re quite a pair, uh?” She tangles her hands on Charlies’ hair, eyes searching her face like she wants to commit everything to memory. “I couldn’t let you die.”

“What’s the point,” Charlie frowns, closing her eyes and shuddering, heart breaking even further into tiny smithereens. Before this, before  _Zari_ , she hadn’t even known she had a heart of her own. “You’ll be gone.”

“You’ll find me,” she says, sounding heartbreakingly sure.

“I won’t know to look,” Charlie shakes her head, feels Zari pressing their foreheads together. “You’ll be erased from the timeline, I’ll forget.”

“No, you’ll find me,” she huffs a laugh, and it sounds wet between her tears, “or I’ll find you, or we’ll find each other. We’re too stubborn.”

Charlie covers Zari’s hands with her own, fumbling for her fingers, and pulls them back to kiss her knuckles. “I love you,” she says against her skin, “make sure you don’t forget that, yeah?”

Opening her eyes, she finds Zari smiling at her. “I won’t,” she promises and stands on her tiptoes to kiss Charlie’s forehead. “I love you too.”

Time stretches and stretches and stretches, _until–_

Behrad claps Charlie heartily on the back, and she grins sharply. “I can’t believe you made it” He laughs, and she squeezes his arms once, hyped up in the thrill of being alive again. It’s better than any drug she’s ever tasted, honest.

“Me neither, mate,” she howls up at the ceiling and moves on, sauntering around this little circle of theirs, receiving bright welcoming hugs and pats, and stops in front of Mick, feeling oddly sentimental. “Knew you’d miss me, big guy.”

Mick grunts. “Wipe that smirk off,” he huffs, but lets her hug him quick, just once too, “and quit with the martyr stuff. It’s bad writing.”

“Right, of course. One time’s too many, I think,” she shrugs, disappointed to find a distinct lack of beer in his person. And with all those concession stands around, no less!

Something nags at her mind, though, like she’s forgetting something. Nate’s name pops up, but nothing follows. Did she have to tell him something? She thinks so, yeah, but can’t, for the life of her, remember what.

It’s probably nothing important, anyway.

“What’s the matter, love?” Constantine asks, fiddling with his lighter with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. In his other hand, he’s using Tabitha’s staff like a cane. “The power of love saved the day, everyone’s riding off to the sunset– it’s bloody happy endings all around. You should be off, drinking yourself stupid to toast your new life, not weeping like a banshee.”

“What? I’m not– _oh,”_  Charlie looks down at her finger, staring uncomprehendingly at the single tear there. She touches her cheek again. Still wet, both of them, and for a moment, she swears she hears an echo, faint and soft, and her chest seems to collapse on itself for no reason. “I dunno. Must be some side effect from all this love magic rubbish.”

“Must be,” he agrees, but still studies her thoughtfully for another second, eyebrows furrowing into a frown. Then, he finally lights his cigarette and pockets the lighter, and somewhere along with the actions, his expression clears into his usual smirk. “On to the toasting, then. The first round is on me.”

Charlie shakes her head, laughs. “On Sara, you mean? We both know it’s her liquor cabinet we’re going to raid.”

The farther they get to the stand, the easier Charlie finds to breathe, the black hole in her ribcage shrinking into a pinpricking needle. And yet, even back at the ship, she can’t quite shake the feeling something is missing.

**Author's Note:**

> and hey, if you liked this, you can always send me prompts or come cry about this on my [tumblr.](https://rad-hoodd.tumblr.com)


End file.
